Public Employee Press

Grievance gets extra pay for OR Technologists

After the union filed a grievance against Coney Island Hospital for not giving its Operating Room Technologists their contractual salary differential, management issued over $10,000 in back pay to four Local 420 members.

When Clotilde Cabrera took the job as a Surgical Technician in 2008, she was a board-certified Operating Room Technologist, a 60-hour accreditation that entitled her to the contract's $1,188 annual differential. "But when I looked at my paycheck," she said, "the money was not there."

After legislation requiring all OR Technicians to be certified failed to pass in Albany in 2012, Local 420 took a close look at members' qualifications; in July the local notified Health and Hospitals Corp. managers of the payroll error.

"Coney Island agreed to pay the differential, but only back to the day we met with them, not the date they hired the workers or Grievance Rep Monique Jaysura, who filed a grievance demanding the back pay HHC owed four ORTs who held the advanced certification.

HHC does not have an OR Technologist title but pays a differential to OR Technicians who have attended an accredited 60- hour program, passed an exam and received certification from the National Board of Surgical Technology and Surgical Assisting. Tuition for a two-year OR Technologist program runs about $24,000.

HHC had the Technologists submit copies of their certifications; then the hospital issued checks for the back pay.

"I feel satisfied. I really worked hard to earn my certification," said Cabrera, who was paid the differential back to 2008 and will use the money toward buying a home.

"The union stood by us. Without them, it would have never happened."